Source code legitimate, Smartmatic swears

Election technology provider Smartmatic International Corp. on Sunday sought to quell doubts and rumors about the legitimacy of the source code it placed in escrow in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) following the first automated elections two years ago.

Cesar Flores, president of Smartmatic Asia-Pacific, said the source code was deposited in the BSP in the presence of officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and members of the media.

“The trusted deal was done in front of the camera,” Flores said.

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Earlier, former Election Commissioner Augusto Lagman, a staunch critic of Smartmatic, questioned the authenticity of the source code.

Lagman had said his doubts stemmed from Smartmatic’s supposed statement made in its recent legal suit against a subcontractor, technology provider Dominion Voting Systems International Corp., that it did not possess the latter’s master software.

A source code is the human-readable representation of the instructions that regulate the operation of a computer, which scans and counts ballots, among other things.

Under the Poll Automation Law, the source code is required to be deposited in escrow in the BSP. Flores said the law was “fully complied with” following the 2010 presidential elections.

The Smartmatic official said he hoped the company’s critics would instead read exhaustively its complaint against Dominion rather than disseminate misinformation to the public. Flores also said the complaint against its subcontractor did not involve the Philippine elections.

In a statement on Saturday, Flores said the case under litigation would not affect Smartmatic’s obligation to provide the Comelec with a working and compliant technology for the 2013 midterm balloting.

“Whoever are [spreading the rumors] are liable for the misinformation they are giving out,” Flores said.